According to the Daily NK:
“The authorities began to provide us with about five hours of electricity per day when the rainy season came; but they also began to take usage charges on it,” a source in the region told Daily NK on August 7th. “It resulted in verbal clashes between residents and the officers dispatched by the Urban Management Office to gather the fees.”
According to sources inside North Korea, the summer rainy season usually brings improved electricity provision: from 1-2hrs per day up to as much as 4-5hrs, as the country’s key hydroelectric turbines are able to operate at a higher capacity. Consumption is charged at a subsidized sum, approximately 80-100 KPW per month; although families with television sets, VCRs or DVD players, fans, rice cookers, etc. pay a surcharge of 100 KPW per device.
Though pleased with the boost in supply, residents are resentful at calls from the revenue collectors. The “we gave it to you, and now you should pay” approach of the authorities is annoying for people who are accustomed to getting by without power the majority of the time.
At the same time, electricity supplies to enterprises and households in North Korea often depend upon bribery; one must give to the local department that oversees the supply in order to get more of the power. The homes of key Party officials are themselves bribed into overlooking this with an unrestricted supply.
Moreover, even in periods where electricity is not going to residential homes, it is possible to bribe the Land Management Office or local enterprises for power, but this is something that only private businesspersons and affluent families are likely to do. A middleman system has emerged, where residents who are able may pay third parties to get a larger share.
The source explained that it all means you can easily pick out the districts where Chosun Workers’ Party officials reside, as they are the ones with well-lit apartments. “The annoyance you feel when you’ve gone through your life without much electricity and you watch them use it late into the night is indescribable,” she said.
“We have no use for electricity in the middle of the night, either, and find it irksome when the lights suddenly come on,” she also added. “They don’t think about the people who are having a hard time surviving, and while they are trading the nation’s electricity supply, only the wealth of officials and the donju is growing; and only they can use it,” the source pointed out.
And yet, “The paradox is that without this system, the nation would probably be devoid of any kind of electricity provision at all,” she concluded. “Transformers are on sale in the market [at 150,000 KPW average, with larger models costing up to 1,500,000 KPW] but even the cheapest ones are beyond the lower classes.”
Read the full story here:
More Electricity Leads to Growing Aggravation
Daily NK
Seol Song Ah
2014-8-8
